Sainte-Claire du Château

Sainte-Claire du Château

Sainte-Claire du Château is a villa in the hills above the town of Hyères in the Var Département of France. In the seventeenth century, the site was occupied by a convent belonging to the order of the Institute of Poor Women, founded in Assisi in 1212, of which Sainte-Claire was the first Mother Superior. Following the French Revolution, the convent was closed and demolished and the land was sold in 1820 to the French naval officer and archaeologist Olivier Voutier (1796–1877), who had brought the ancient sculpture Venus de Milo from Greece to France. Voutier constructed a villa, which he named La Villa Sainte Claire. In 1927, the American novelist Edith Wharton acquired the property, which she renamed Saint-Claire du Château, to use as a winter residence. She created notable gardens at the villa. Wharton bequeathed the property to Elisina Tyler in 1937.